Many establishments, such as fast food restaurants or the like, mix food products, such as blending condiments into soft serve ice creams, smoothies or the like, directly in the cup to be used by the customer to consume the product. It is a time saving advantage if such machines are fully automated. In such situations, the cup is filled with the products to be blended and is placed in a cup holder. Upon activation of the machine, the cup holder can rotate and can move upwardly to allow an agitator to be received in the cup and mix the products contained therein. The cup holder then moves downwardly to the home position and the machine is deactivated so that the cup can be removed from the cup holder with the food product therein being mixed and ready for consumption.
A problem with this process is that the cup could, at times, become dislodged from the cup holder. That is, as the cup holder and agitator rotate, the turbulence created in the food product could cause the cup to rotate and/or wobble in the cup holder. Such could not only allow food to spill out of the cup, but also if the turbulence is great enough, the cup itself could come out of the cup holder. Such would particularly be the case if the cup were permitted to wobble so much that it was engaged by the agitator thereby being easily dislodged from the cup holder.
An additional problem with some machines of the prior art is that food product spillage can reside on the outside of the cup holder. Such could occur based on normal spillage of food as it is being mixed, which could readily happen if the cup is overfilled, or it could occur based on the wobbling of the cup previously described. If unabated, such spillage may then run down the sides of the cup holder and into the operating components of the machine causing contamination thereto.
The need exists, therefore, for a system of holding a cup stable in a cup holder and also sealing the outside of the cup holder to prevent contamination in the event of food spillage from the cup.